


Across the Spectrum

by Riona



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: M/M, Porn Without Plot Without Porn, choking someone who doesn't actually need to breathe, ridiculously self-indulgent, weird pseudo-sexual self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24553981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: Rimmer's curious about all he can feel, now that he's hard light.Allhe can feel, pain included. But he's not great at inflicting pain on himself, so he's going to need some help.
Relationships: Dave Lister/Arnold Rimmer
Comments: 17
Kudos: 58





	Across the Spectrum

**Author's Note:**

> _Red Dwarf_ was one of my earliest fandoms. It's good to be back!
> 
> Don't try this at home, unless you're a hologram. In particular, 'touch me when you want me to stop choking you' isn't safe; it can be hard to move when you're oxygen-deprived.
> 
> (EDIT: Just had the terrible realisation, shortly after posting this, that I may have misremembered the bunk arrangement on Starbug. I'm sorry about that! I suppose the occasional continuity error adds to the authentic _Red Dwarf_ experience.)

The door to their quarters is sticking again, has to be operated manually. Lister yanks it open and holds it for Rimmer, because he’s not really in the mood to hear one of Rimmer’s lectures on being considerate.

Not that he’s in a _bad_ mood, particularly. He’s just never in the mood to hear one of Rimmer’s lectures on being considerate.

Rimmer walks through, brushing Lister’s shoulder, and it hits Lister at the same time he sees it dawn on Rimmer. Hard light. He can open his own doors now. He doesn’t need Lister for stuff like this.

This is going to take some adjusting.

-

Lister’s woken by a strange noise. It’s a kind of whimpering.

He thinks at first the Cat’s stuck his face in the water supply and regretted it again. But he’s pretty sure the sound is coming from the bunk below his, and it seems unlikely that the Cat would crawl into Rimmer’s arms for comfort.

The lights are on, very low.

He grips the side of his bunk. Leans out over the edge to take a peek.

Rimmer’s pressed into the corner of the lower bunk, pushing his own fingers back as far as they’ll go. Too far. He’s obviously trying to stay quiet, trying to hide the pain, but he’s bad at it.

This is weird, right?

“You trying to break your fingers?” Lister asks.

Rimmer jolts. Looks up at him. “None of your – this is private!”

“Shouldn’t be doing it when I’m in the room, then,” Lister says, hopping down from his bunk. “What was it?”

Rimmer hesitates. “I’m just... trying to get used to my new body.”

“What, by snapping bits off it?”

“You remember what Legion said?” Rimmer asks. “ _Your pleasure and pain responses remain the same, but you cannot come to harm_.”

“Yeah, and I figured you’d go straight for pleasure. Why are you hurting yourself when you could be having a wank instead?”

“With you in the room?” Rimmer asks. “Forgive me, Lister, but I don’t find your presence particularly erotic.”

“Right,” Lister says. “Yeah, _that_ would be weird.”

“Is it so strange? I’ve been more or less deprived of physical sensation for an _extremely_ long time. Is it ‘weird’ for me to be curious about the full range of experiences suddenly available to me?”

“Well, yeah, actually,” Lister says. “You’re a coward. You ran away from everything even when it couldn’t leave a scratch on you, and suddenly you’re all about pain?”

Rimmer hesitates.

“I think that’s why I’m not very good at it,” he mutters, looking away.

“Not good at what?”

“Er,” Rimmer says. “Causing myself pain. Like you said. I’m a coward. I really am curious, but my body just... rebels.”

Wait, is this—

Is Lister being _confided_ in? It seemed like it was just an opportunity to rip the piss out of Rimmer, but is he actually going to have to take this seriously?

“Yeah, well, is that a bad thing?” Lister asks. “Hurting yourself, it’s not good, is it? It’s not generally considered a desirable thing.”

“I’m not human,” Rimmer says. “I wouldn’t be in danger. I just – I can _feel_ things, now. I _want_ to feel things. I miss – I miss all of it.”

He’s still in the corner of the bunk, knees drawn up to his chest. Lister sits next to him, tries to think of what you’re supposed to say to a hologram so touch-starved he’s looking for pain.

“Maybe you could help me,” Rimmer says. A little nervous, a little hopeful.

Help him?

“I’m not gonna hurt you, man,” Lister says.

“Not _badly_ ,” Rimmer says. “This is still new, everything’s... more intense, I suppose, than I remember it. I’m not telling you to slam me in the iron maiden. Just... look, just pinch me, that’s nothing.”

Lister looks at him for a moment. “I don’t want you whining when you told me to do it.”

“No whining,” Rimmer says, quickly. “I promise.”

A moment longer.

Lister reaches out. Pushes up the sleeve of Rimmer’s pyjamas, pinches him on the forearm. Rimmer gasps, just slightly.

Lister wasn’t pinching that hard. Seems like he wasn’t kidding about things being more intense. “You okay?”

Rimmer nods. Says nothing.

Lister hovers his fingers above Rimmer’s arm, tries to look a question at him. Rimmer nods again, tensing, and Lister goes in for another nip.

He wasn’t sure what to expect, touching Rimmer. But it feels like real skin, it feels normal.

It’s weird. He’s known for years that Rimmer is dead. But somehow it only really seems to be hitting him now that it feels like he’s alive.

Who is Rimmer to him, anyway? He’s known the dead one a lot longer than the living one, by this point. As far as he’s concerned, the holographic Rimmer _is_ the real Rimmer. And that Rimmer’s still alive, at least, whatever that means for a hologram.

“That enough?” Lister asks.

Rimmer opens his mouth. Hesitates. “You can go back to bed, if you want.”

Definite reluctance in his voice, there. This is the man’s first experience of touch in three million and five years, give or take a couple of excursions; is Lister really going to leave him unsatisfied?

“Not if that wasn’t enough,” Lister says. “We’ve started this, we’ll finish it.”

He smacks Rimmer across the face, before he can think too hard about it. Rimmer swears very loudly.

That might’ve been a mistake. “Too much?”

“Yes!” Rimmer snaps back, clutching his cheek, and then, “I – oh,” and then, “N-no?”

“No?”

“No, that was – that was – well, just give me a moment and we can try that again.” Rimmer pauses. “If you’ve no objection.”

“You kidding?” Lister asks. “Getting to hit you repeatedly in the face? It’s a dream come true.”

Rimmer shoots him a glare. Lister puts on his most innocent smile in return.

He’s not sure he’s mastered the innocent look, really. It always sends Kryten into a panic and makes him check the entire ship for damage.

Rimmer closes his eyes. “Okay. I’ll – I’ll tell you when I need you to stop.”

Lister hits him again.

“Stop, stop, stop!” Rimmer squawks.

“What, that’s it?” Lister asks. He’s slightly disappointed. He tries not to think about why.

No, wait, it’s fine to think about why, it makes sense. Like he said, who wouldn’t want to hit Rimmer?

“I just – I just need breaks,” Rimmer protests. He presses his hands over his eyes for a moment, then takes them away, staring very determinedly not at Lister. “I just – I had a very low pain threshold even when I _hadn’t_ gone years without feeling pain, I need to ease back in, I—”

He cuts himself off. There’s a definite tremor in his breathing. Something about that is making Lister feel kind of strange.

“Can you move?” Rimmer asks. “I think if I lie down I might be able to... take... more.” He makes a face that suggests that’s not really how he wanted to phrase it. It’s too late; they’ve both heard it now.

Lister nods, shifts on the bunk so Rimmer has space to stretch his legs out.

“Okay,” Rimmer says, settling his head back on the pillow. He inhales slowly, exhales. “Okay. I’m ready.”

Lister slaps him. Rimmer cries out, quietly, but he doesn’t ask him to stop. Lister waits a couple of seconds, to make sure, then goes for another strike.

How did they end up in this situation, again?

Rimmer’s got his eyes clenched shut, he’s breathing hard. Lister’s never really understood how breathing works for holograms.

“What if I choked you?” Lister asks, the thought coming suddenly to him. “I mean, you don’t actually _need_ to breathe, right?”

Legion said he was practically indestructible. But there was that ‘practically’.

He can go places without an atmosphere, right? He doesn’t need to breathe.

Rimmer opens his eyes, frowning slightly. “Technically, no.” It sounds like he’s trying to keep his voice steady. He’s not very good at it. “I do generally _prefer_ to breathe.”

“Yeah, but you _generally prefer_ not to feel pain, don’t you?” Lister asks. “Long as we’re experimenting, might be worth a shot.”

Rimmer gives him a very sharp look. “You’re not thinking about me at all! You just want to strangle me! Just like everyone does!”

“I mean,” Lister says, “maybe, but I don’t want to strangle you _dead_. No permanent damage, right? You get to test out your new body; I get something for the mental album I can go back to next time you start talking about telegraph poles. What’s the problem?”

Rimmer hesitates.

“Well,” he says, “I suppose it could be worth trying.”

He’s agreeing?

Maybe it’s arrogant to take that as a sign that Rimmer trusts him. It’s not like it’s the same as it would be with a living person. And it’s not like Rimmer’s swimming in people he could ask to help out with his whole pain thing; the only others on the Bug are Kryten, who’s programmed not to harm humans, and the Cat, who’d probably take the opportunity with _way_ too much enthusiasm.

“You sure?” Lister asks.

“Not really,” Rimmer says, slightly high-pitched. “But I, ah, I want you to do it anyway, please.”

Lister pauses. “I’ll back off any time, y’know.”

“ _Please_ ,” Rimmer says, desperately.

Lister lets out a slow breath.

Hard to strangle someone who’s lying down from off to the side. Could ask Rimmer to stand up.

Lister climbs on top of him. Knees either side of Rimmer’s hips, pinning him in place. It hits him that he _couldn’t_ keep Rimmer trapped before, really. Not like this.

Rimmer takes a shaky breath through his mouth. He’s shivering.

“You all right, man?” Lister asks.

“I – I’m fine.” Rimmer’s closed his eyes again. “I just – I’m not used to – it’s been all these years since anyone, since anyone t-touched me – well, there was the holoship—”

The holoship. Where he...

“They strangled you on the holoship?” Lister asks, trying to keep it light. “Can’t say I blame ’em.”

Is he really doing this? How does he start?

He puts his hands against Rimmer’s throat. Starts to press, lightly at first. Rimmer twitches underneath him.

“You can touch me or something if you want me to stop, right?” Lister asks.

Rimmer tries to nod. Can’t really manage it, but Lister feels the effort against his hand. Tries going a little tighter.

He can’t feel a pulse. He guesses that makes sense. He never really thought about it.

So much about Rimmer looks human, but Lister doesn’t know that much about hologram technology, nothing about hard light. He’s got no idea what’s going on under the hood. Rimmer probably doesn’t know either.

“That okay?” Lister asks.

Rimmer makes a very small noise.

Lister’s hard, but so’s Rimmer, so at least neither of them can say anything about it. Mutually assured destruction.

Maybe Rimmer’d be able to talk normally, even now, if he doesn’t actually need to breathe. Maybe his voice just plays out of a speaker on his light bee or something. The idea kind of creeps Lister out. He doesn’t suggest it.

And suddenly Rimmer’s tapping Lister’s thigh, frantically, and Lister lets go of his neck straight away. Plants his hands each side of Rimmer’s head.

“Lister,” Rimmer says, in an urgent whisper, “I think I hear someone coming.”

Lister barely manages to resist saying _yeah, it might be me_. Presses a hand over Rimmer’s mouth to listen. Rimmer, offended, shoves his hand over Lister’s face in return, and it turns into a bit of a slap fight, if Lister’s honest.

“Shh, shh, shh!” Lister pins Rimmer’s arms to the bunk and listens hard. “Ah, it’s just Kryten night vacuuming again. He’s not gonna come in.”

There’s a pause.

Rimmer glances down at his wrists. The wrists that Lister... yeah, he still hasn’t let go of them, has he?

Does he _need_ to let go?

Rimmer swallows. “I hope you realise that this wasn’t an invitation to BDSM. I refuse to be dominated by a man who looks like a cartoon chipmunk.”

“BDSM?”

“Oh, it’s an eighteenth-century term,” Rimmer says, with some authority. Seems like he’s got his confidence back, now that he can lord knowing something Lister doesn’t over him. “Bondage, domination, sausages and mash. It means – it means – well, it’s not what’s happening here, I can tell you.”

“You think that’s what I want out of this?” Lister asks. “I mean, yeah, bangers and mash sounds great, but bon...” Uh-oh. Don’t think about it. “But the other stuff?”

“Well, _I_ don’t know!” Rimmer snaps. “There you are, harder than the Listener crossword, trying to act like you’ve never had an impure thought in your life—”

There it is. Smeg. No option but to return fire. “ _I’m_ hard? Thought I’d plonked myself down on the Eiffel Tower.”

Rimmer looks simultaneously outraged and slightly, unwarrantedly flattered. Should’ve gone for a less impressive comparison. “That doesn’t count! That doesn’t mean anything, you can’t hold that against me, you know I’m not used to being touched—”

“Well, neither am I; it’s been three smegging years!”

They stare at each other for a moment. It feels like Lister’s insides are aching, although that might just be his bedtime curry.

Lister takes in a rough breath. He’s really going to say this, isn’t he? “You sure you don’t want help with the pleasure side as well?”


End file.
